Re: Xen in SuSE Pro 9.3

[Robbie Dinn <robbie@microbus.com>]

Mark Williamson wrote:
> According to http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/preview/, the 
> latest SuSE includes Xen packages.
> 

> To what degree is this supported yet?  Is there a Yast module (as for UML) 
> yet, or is it just the RPMs?  

I had difficulty finding the sources. I eventually found them here:

  ftp://ftp.suse.com/projects/kernel/kotd/i386/HEAD/kernel-source.src.rpm

but I would advise using a mirror instead. I don't think SuSE
like having all their bandwidth eaten up, plus you get better bandwidth
from the mirror. This one worked for me:
 
http://mirrors.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/pub/linux/suse/ftp.suse.com/projects/kernel/kotd/i386/HEAD/kernel-source.src.rpm

I don't know about any Yast module, but I haven't missed having one.

> Of course, Yast can still do an install into a 
> subtree to make a domain filesystem, so it's not that big an issue.

I haven't used the Yast UML 'install into a subtree' tool recently.
It may have improved since I last used it, but I found some things
needed patching by hand after the install (many months ago).

To install n machine images, I did n ordinary installs booting from
the install media, each install into it's own logical volume.
It's slow and it's dumb but it works. This also let me install a
Fedora core3 image along side the SuSE images. Of course this
method doesn't work on a live xen machine.

SuSE won't let you install into a root filesystem into a logical
volume unless you have a seperate boot partition. I set aside two
partions, one to act as a boot partition and one to act as a scratch
pad or fake /boot filesystem when installing the domU images. I tar'ed
the fake boot filesytem and untar'ed it back onto the root image after
each install.

> Perhaps I should upgrade :-)
> 

It's worth using the SuSE rpm's if you want a SuSE box
because it is what you are familiar with _and_ you want
a kernel that is as close as possible to what SuSE currently
ship/support. That was my reason anyhow.

Otherwise you could just use your favorite distribution.
Fedora core3 is pretty painless.

I am gratefull that SuSE are putting this stuff out for people
to try and I am looking forward to the next release.


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